


The Lowest Point of the Sun

by ThreeBs



Category: Durarara!!
Genre: Angst, Boys In Love, Consensual Infidelity, F/M, Friendship, Hope, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Love, Love Confessions, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Past Relationship(s), Reminiscing, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-08-27 13:32:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16703554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThreeBs/pseuds/ThreeBs
Summary: Shizuo will take what he can get because today is more than what he deserves, that much he knows.





	The Lowest Point of the Sun

**Author's Note:**

> Winter Solstice.

Shizuo’s brain is filled with mosses.

The television is on, spilling fluorescent colors over his face but he can’t tell the difference in shades, can’t make out the images that move inside the screen. A laughing track plays, filling the silence, but it never reaches his ears to register into a cue to smile. He doesn’t think it’s possible to lift the corners of his mouth even if he wanted to, not against the memory that plays in his head like a looped supercut; a slow-moving montage that serves to tighten his throat at the same time his fist does. It’s like he’s there all over again, past Shinra’s balcony and past the skyline to the twinkling holiday lights that hang across shops and over the streets of Ikebukuro, flaring into blurred circles at the edges of his vision. Then, there’s beautiful and familiar laughter igniting a spark of happiness in him but, before he can fully comprehend the lovely intonations, it dims into a dying flame. The cheerful cackling leaves the remains of what used to be his heart to melt into a pool of wax in the wake of a sound he adores but hasn’t heard in months, even before the break-up. It had been him who had extinguished it from his life and he knew that fact but the remembrance of it makes it hurt so much more than it did at first, as though opening a barely healed wound repeatedly. He could have turned the other way, could have spun around and walked a different direction to keep his world intact, enduring despite the heartache. Instead, he followed the voice, a little desperate, and he doesn’t know if he’s thankful in a bittersweet sort of way or if he regrets how his life shattered into a million pieces he’ll never hope to find. The smoke in his lungs isn’t much of comfort now, can’t stop the trembling of his hands and the watering of his eyes, and can’t help him pretend that gluing the jagged fragments together will make it as it once was.

“Did you know?” he asks, voice cracking.

“Hm?” Shinra hums distractedly, face facing Shizuo before his eyes leave the variety show. “What did I know?”

“That he found someone else.”

Shinra smiles sympathetically. “He’s my best friend.”

“What does that fucking mean?”

Shinra sighs. “It  _means_ : of course, I knew.”  

Shizuo takes a deep breath. “Why,” he swallows, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Why would I?”

Shizuo laughs humorlessly. “I don’t fucking know!” he says, flailing his arms. “So, I didn’t have to be surprised when I fucking saw him with someone else?”

“Ah! He sure has a thing for blondes, right?” He wiggles his eyebrows.

“Don’t.  _Please_. Don’t," and Shizuo almost chokes on his own words.

“Sorry,” Shinra says sheepishly, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

Shizuo fights his tears. “Is It-Did he tell you not to tell me?”

Shinra narrows his eyes. “No. He’s not like that.”

Shizuo exhales shakily. “Then why didn’t you let me know? I would have liked a head’s up.”

“Was I supposed to give you that?”

Shizuo shrugs. “I thought that’s what friends did.”

“That has nothing to do with being friends."

Shizuo furrows his eyebrows, pulling at the bottom of his vest. “I don’t understand.”

“Look,” Shinra says, voice serious, “It’s not my place. I’m not part of you guy’s relationship and I’m not in some debt that requires me to tell you what color shirt he’s wearing, how short he cut his hair, the date his children are born, or the moment his father dies. I’m also not an errand boy, middleman, or anything remotely close to that.”

“I wasn’t asking for his life’s story or for you to keep tabs on him! I simply would have liked to be prepared!”

“For what?” Shinra says, raising his voice. “You guys broke up months ago. It shouldn’t surprise you that he’s moving on, or dating, or rebounding, or whatever he’s doing without you. The fact that you didn’t think he would, is naive at best. I mean, what? Did you expect he’d be pining for you forever? Begging like you should be doing instead?” 

“I-I lo ‘im,” he says, the tears making him sound slurred and clipped.

“I think if you loved him you would have respected him, appreciated him, see him as something sacred or special not a punching bag for your rage.”

“I- how did you know?”

“Who do you think had to patch him up? Like I said: he’s my best friend. I want what’s best for him and you aren’t it,” and Shinra averts his eyes, looking back at the television.

There's silence for a moment before Shizuo asks, "Is he- fuck, is he in love with her?"

“Does it matter? He’s with her and not with you.”

“I-I never had a chance, did I?”

“Why don’t you ask if he’s in love with you?”

“Does it matter? Like you said: he’s with her.”

Shinra shrugs, returning his attention to the show, laughing like he hasn’t dug his hands into Shizuo’s wounded heart and Shizuo tries to find it in himself to listen to what they say, the jokes they tell and the new products they try to sell but he can only see Izaya laughing, fingers intertwined with her; Vorona. It was only an hour ago that Izaya had pressed the tip of his nose against her cheek, kissing the line of her jaw, and she had looked at him, letting him do as he wished, but she didn’t seem to have any reaction to his touch, not in the way Shizuo would have shivered if Izaya’s hair so much as brushed the side of his neck. He doesn’t understand; how is it possible for her to remain impassive in the face of Izaya’s smile and the way his eyes shine, the corners of them crinkling? But maybe, it’s her lack of emotions that prevents her from raising her voice at Izaya when he teases her to amuse, to flirt. Perhaps, it’s her impassiveness that stops her from getting angry enough to lay a finger on him that isn’t tender and soft. Perchance, Izaya no longer finds purple knuckle shaped bruises on his body from the people who claim to love him and it’s her seeming indifference, then, what inhibits her from having to imprint the look of dejection and utter betrayal on Izaya’s face. Shizuo had hoped to be his safe space but he wasn’t and the idea that a woman like Vorona can, in her lack of emotion, treat him, love him, better  _hurts_.

Shinra’s phone rings, a short thing, not from a call but from a text. He takes it out of his lab coat, opening the flip-phone and, “you should leave,” he says.

“What?” Shizuo asks, caught off-guard. “Why?”

“Izaya’s coming over.”

“And I can’t be here?”

“Not with him, no. This is my house and I’d rather not have anything broken.”

“Oh,” Shizuo says, sagging in defeat. “Ok.” He stands, walking over to put his shoes on.

“He still loves you, you know? Which is more than you deserve.”

"Yeah," and Shizuo closes the door far gentler than Shinra thought he ever would.

 

Shizuo starts, blinking to bring his sight back into focus. He rubs his eyes, taking a moment to clear the fog in his brain. The sky is black, and the stars are invisible behind the city light. It’s eleven at night. There’s silence in his apartment, the television on mute. He doesn’t quite understand why he roused from nodding off, not until a series of gentle but insistent knocks sound on his door. He stares, furrowing his eyebrows. He doesn’t move, confused as to who could possibly be on the other side when more than half of his neighborhood is asleep. There’s knocking again and Shizuo pushes himself up, the heel of his bare feet pitter-pattering on the flooring. Shizuo doesn’t look through the peephole, doesn’t open the door to look through the small space between the door and the frame, the chain still on. Instead, he slides it sideways, the metal clacking as it falls at the same time he turns the bolt. He opens the door and it’s a little like the planet has stopped spinning with the halting of his heart despite the blood in his stomach moving, running cold inside his veins. Shizuo’s lost the capability of speech, has laid to rest the act of breathing too.

“Hi, Shizu-chan,” Izaya says, and if him with Vorona was a slash to the wrist, having him just shy of stepping on his welcome mat is a bullet to the chest. “Well, aren’t you going to invite me in?” he asks, calm and teasing, a smirk pulling one corner of his mouth up.

Shizuo, dazed and on autopilot, steps aside, allowing space for Izaya to enter the apartment, brushing his hand against Shizuo’s exposed abdomen and he shudders, unable to control the goosebumps that travel all over his body, starting at the point of contact.

Izaya takes off his shoes, ambling to the sofa and letting himself drop, back on the cushions and foot on the armrest, a leg hanging over the edge. Izaya’s beautiful effortlessly, even with the unflattering light of the television. Izaya stares at the show for a moment, an eyebrow raised, before turning his head to take in the details in the apartment; the shirt over the back of the bar chair and the phoenix he gave Shizuo a few weeks before the breakup. “It’s a good thing you never canceled the lease, huh?” he says, offhanded and casual but tense somewhere in the angle of his shoulders.

“Yeah,” Shizuo says, a little gruff.

“A little doctor bird told me you were asking about me. Is that true, Shizu-chan?” Izaya grins.

Shizuo crosses his arms over his chest, leaning his back on the column between the living room and the kitchenette. “I saw you today.”

Izaya hums. “I heard,” he says in a way that suggests he knows exactly what Shizuo means.

“You’re with someone else.”

“Is that what you think?”

“Aren’t you?”

“I am,” he shrugs, “kind of.”

“What does that mean?”

“Does it matter?”

Shizuo sighs. “No wonder you and Shinra get along so fucking well. Fucking twins, I swear.”

Izaya laughs. “Is that so?”

“Why are you here?”

“Do you want me to leave?”

“That’s not-  _No_ ,” he grates.

“I came to see you, Shizu-chan,” he says, standing.

“Why?” Shizuo says, something close to pathetic desperation.

“Because I wanted to.”

“What would  _she_  say?” and  _she_  scrapes against his throat, leaving it raw and aching.

“Nothing.” He nears Shizuo. “She knows where I am. She knows who I’m with.”

“Does she know who I am to you? What we," he gulps, "what we had?”

“Yes.”

“And what? she’s  _fine_  with it?”

“She is,” he says, certain. “It was her idea.”

“I…” but he doesn’t finish because, really, what is he supposed to say to that?

“I’m leaving for Russia tomorrow.”

“What?” he stares at Izaya, searching for a lie that he won’t find. “Wh- for how long?” He whispers.

“Just for a little while,” he says, placing his hands on Shizuo’s chest, hearing his breath hitch. “I’m going with her.”

“Why are you here then?” he asks, sounding like a child, insecure and close to crying.

Izaya chuckles “I told you, silly. I came to see you.”

“Shouldn’t you be with  _her_?” he bites, “Packing and shit?”

“No, I shouldn’t, but if you want to, tell me to go. Tell me to leave and I will. I’ll listen, Shizu-chan. I promise,” but if they’re meant to be reassurances they only cause a bout of panic to arise.

“Stay,” he rushes out, pushing the words against the lump in his throat. “ _Please_ ,” and Izaya’s kissing him, warm and languid. Shizuo brings his hands to the sides of Izaya’s waist, tightening his grip as he pulls away from Izaya’s lips. “What are you doing?”

“Kissing you. What else?”

Shizuo huffs. “Breaking my heart,” he says, hiding his face in the junction between Izaya’s neck and shoulder.

Izaya chuckles, his breath hitting against Shizuo’s collarbone. He raises his head, taking Shizuo’s face between his hands, the pads of his fingers soft like silk. “Do you like it?” he says, ghosting his lips to Shizuo’s.

“ _Yes_ ,” and he’s pressing his mouth against Izaya’s – kissing, teasing, nipping – and he wonders, distantly, if she knows Izaya prefers lips over tongue or that he likes teeth tugging; maybe he loves her enough to love it all the same even if she does it all wrong. The inside of his chest clenches like his hands on Izaya, pulling him closer, knee to knee as if to merge into one.

Izaya stands on the tip of his toes, caressing his foot up the length of Shizuo’s calf, and Shizuo drops his arms, cupping Izaya’s ass to pick him up with practiced ease, allowing Izaya to wrap his legs around his hips. Shizuo walks to the sofa, sitting with the weight of Izaya straddling his lap. He helps Izaya slip his arms out of the sleeves of his jacket, letting it fall on the floor with a soft thud, and urging the hem of his shirt up, throwing the material to the side to latch his mouth over Izaya’s clavicle, sucking hard enough to bruise the pale, even-toned, and unmarred skin. Shizuo shivers as Izaya’s cold hands travel to his navel, tugging at the elastic of his sweats and taking him out of his pants. He groans at the contact between Izaya’s fingers and his cock as he unbuttons and unzips Izaya’s jeans, grabbing both their erections in his hand and stroking them in tandem with a rhythm that matches the quickening of their combined heart rate. Shizuo breathing hastens too, loud and humid over the expanse of Izaya’s neck.

Shizuo jerks his hips, grounding his pelvis to Izaya’s, seeking the last tendrils of arousal. He hurries, tightening his hold on them and Izaya moans, “Shizuo,” and he sounds so strained, pretty, that Shizuo comes then, a grunt catching in the back of his throat, choking on itself. He throws his head back, black spots dancing in his vision, Izaya a smudged silhouette of what he used to be. He stops moving, body going boneless, and he can’t think, can’t concentrate on anything past the high and the laser-focus on the scolding heat of Izaya’s skin over him, mind fogging of everything independent of them, obscuring the world that exists separate to this moment.

“Shizu- _chan_ ,” Izaya whines, rocking back and forth to rut against Shizuo in search of friction. Shizuo bats his lashes repeatedly to form a coherent clear image of him, to make it back into awareness enough to notice his cum on his stomach, over his fingers, and Izaya, hard, red, and pulsing, in his lazy hold. Izaya chuckles tight, “C’mon,” he complains, digging his nails on Shizuo’s nape and swiping his tongue on the base of his neck. “Don’t you want me?” he whispers, and Shizuo stiffens his fingers around him instantly, instinctively, to the undertone of insecurity in Izaya’s voice despite the faux-amusement he tries for.

“Of course, I do. I always do,” and he swipes a thumb over the slit, stroking him a little rougher than before, running his other hand around his body with no clear destination.

“Shizuo,” he whimpers, and his name has never been more picturesque, the intonations articulated to perfection as it rolls off Izaya’s voice. He angles his face up and Izaya is already looking at him, his gaze a mixture of affection and fondness; grief underneath despite the desire that half-lids his eyes. In his cowardness, Shizuo closes his eyes, driving forward to kiss Izaya with enough force to try and overwrite his own failures, as though he could kiss away the scar on Izaya’s temple and the blood that once ran down the corner of his lips. Izaya gasps away from the kiss to breathe over the shell of Shizuo’s ear and he snorts halfheartedly, whispering as if not even the air has a right to hear, to know: “I love you.” Shizuo pulls him closer to him, chest to chest, gripping at his cock a little harder to make Izaya moan, the sound thrumming underneath his skin. “I love you,” Izaya repeats, and the timbre is sad in a way that Shizuo can’t find it in himself to rejoice over the fact.

Should he be glad Izaya still loves him or upset that losing his love to Shizuo is a cause of sorrow?

Shizuo speeds the pace in which he pumps Izaya when he starts to fuck into his fist. A failed scream crosses past Izaya’s teeth, choking out “ _Shizuo_ ,” as he comes. His muscles tense and his bones lock before he gives an all-body shudder, sinking into Shizuo’s frame. His breaths are harsh and short, as though hyperventilating, and his heart pounds wildly against his ribcage, rough enough to hurt. “I love you,” he says, shaky, and it sounds too much like a sob to do anything but break Shizuo’s heart, leaving him hollow inside. He hugs Izaya to him, the tremors that wrack his body from the pads of his fingers to the tip of his toes passing through him. He places a hand in the back of Izaya’s head, keeping him in the crook of his neck, and hides his nose against his black hair, taking in the scent of blooming jasmines.

“I love you too, you know,” he says, kissing his temple.

Izaya laughs, somewhat hysterical, and echoes: “I love you, you know” with tears rolling down his cheek, falling onto Shizuo’s skin.

Shizuo doesn’t say anything else for lack of words, for lack of something substantial to contribute; he can't even pretend to have the courage to look Izaya in the eye.

It takes a few minutes for Izaya to stop crying and the tremors of his orgasm to dwindle. It takes longer for Shizuo to muster the valor to extract his nose from the crook of Izaya’s neck. He wipes the last of the tears from Izaya’s cheeks with his thumbs, focusing on the thin of Izaya’s eyebrows to pretend as though he’s looking at him.

Izaya pushes himself off Shizuo, sniffling, and wordlessly he walks to the bathroom, Shizuo following close behind.

The shower doesn’t last long, not when Shizuo doesn’t care to wash properly outside of watching the cum on his torso spiral down the drain. Instead, he caresses the ridges and dips of Izaya’s spine in between bubbles of soap. He touches Izaya’s protruding shoulder blade as if he’s never seen them before as if he used to have wings breaking out from his back. He massages Izaya’s scalp with the scent of his shampoo and conditioner, taking extra time to detangle his hair, extracting a sigh out of him. Under the stream of warm water, Izaya closes his eyes to lay the back of his head on Shizuo’s shoulder, placing his hand on Shizuo’s thigh as a point of contact, a way to remain connected. Izaya’s always been this way: cooking Shizuo's favorite meal on days that weren't his birthday and sitting on the sofa, pressing his side flush against him even after Shizuo was no longer giving him flowers on their anniversaries and even when he wasn’t holding his hand anymore. It’s not as though Shizuo stopped loving him, that’s not it at all, but Shizuo was neglectful, ignoring the cracks that kept blooming between them, sure Izaya wouldn’t leave. Shizuo’s friends thought, commented often, that Izaya was self-centered and self-entitled but it was always Shizuo, out of them, who was selfish.

Izaya flinches, he notes, when he notices movement, fast and blurred, in the corner of his eyes, and Shizuo’s guilt, no matter how strong and pungent, can’t reverse time, can’t change all the things he did and should have done.  

He doesn’t talk much either which isn’t all that surprising, not anymore. He stopped when Shizuo would take anything he said and turned it into an argument when he wasn’t ignoring him, shutting the front door and leaving the loft in the middle of Izaya’s sentence. Shizuo misses his voice, misses when the words would drip with sarcasm, humor, and playful banter. Now, Izaya’s careful when he speaks, choosing terms carefully to express himself while wary of Shizuo’s behavior to run at the first sign of irritation.

It’s nauseating; what he’s done to the man he claimed to love.

After the shower, Izaya makes ramen with the few ingredients Shizuo has in his kitchenette, ignoring the noodles-in-a-cup in the pantry. When it’s done, Shizuo serves them, taking the bowls and placing them on the coffee table. Izaya sits, crisscrossed on the floor, while Shizuo drops on his knees, unmuting the television before throwing the controller behind himself to fall on the coach, allowing the noise of the show to rip through the silence that has settled between them. Izaya pays rapt attention to the educational bits, barely blinking, and he chuckles at the funny skits, pointing his finger at the ridicule of it all with a hand on Shizuo’s bicep. It’s comfortable, as though Izaya is his and not dating a woman he’ll be following to the cold snowy scenery of Russia in the morning; as though he hadn’t had Izaya’s cock in his grip less than half an hour ago despite being broken up for months.

He never imagined this would be them.

Shizuo is the one to take the dishes to the sink, leaving them dirty to sit until morning. Izaya turns the tv off, staring at the black of the screen and his own small and distorted reflection in it. Shizuo rests his chin on his shoulder, hugging him from behind, drawing invisible lines on his arms. “Are you ok?” he asks, and when Izaya turns around he kisses him on the forehead. Izaya’s breath stutters. He looks up from behind the shadow of his lashes with a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes; Shizuo’s tenderness unfamiliar to the point of suspicion. It dawns on him then; the damage is done. Izaya can’t trust him, can’t love him without fear tainting each movement and each expectation. It’s hard too, to pretend not to notice the scars that healed over to leave dark marks and raised bumps. Izaya turns around, walking down the hallway as though the apartment was his, as though he was familiar with the layout, each nook, and cranny, of the flat. Shizuo follows, staring at the sway of Izaya’s shoulders and the hit of his hips.

Izaya opens the door to the room, the old wood creaking with the movement. There’s a large open window on the side, looking out into the city with sheer curtains dancing with each gust of wind. Shizuo sits on the edge of the bed that still misses a headboard and Izaya settles on the far corner chair staring at him.

“Do you want me to leave?” Izaya asks, again.

Shizuo pushes his bangs back with his fingers. “No.”

“I’m sleeping here then.”

“That’s fine.”

“Is it?”

“I-I don’t want you to leave. I... I don't want you to  _ever_  leave.”

“Alright,” Izaya says, crouching between Shizuo’s legs. “I’m taking your word, Shizu-chan,” and, slowly, he moves his hand up to touch Shizuo’s cheekbones. “Can I trust it?”

“Yes,” he says, breath ghosting over the inside of Izaya’s wrist.

“Ok,” and Izaya sits on Shizuo’s thighs. “Ok,” and he kisses, firm and ardent.

They shed their clothes with gentle desperation, some of it tearing and splitting as it’s taken off their bodies. Izaya lays on his back and Shizuo hovers on top of him between Izaya’s open legs. Pink rises to Izaya’s cheeks and down his neck to the very top of his chest. Shizuo pecks his lips, traveling to his bellybutton to mold his mouth in the shape of Izaya’s cock, tasting of strawberry on his tongue. Izaya bucks into him with a moan, fingers yanking at his hair while pushing him down. Shizuo bobs his head before sucking roughly to let him go with a  _pop_. He slicks himself up, cold against warmth, and lining to Izaya. He pushes in and Izaya moans like Shizuo inside him is the best and worse things that have ever happened to him, like he’s both laughing and crying at the same time. Shizuo grunts himself, overwhelmed by how hot and tight Izaya is around him and the scent of jasmine is like breathing fire into his lungs.

Shizuo’s never made love before but maybe it’s only this intense because he hasn’t been with anyone else in a long time or maybe it’s because Izaya’s pout accentuates his cupid’s bow but maybe it has to do with a type of love that borders on obsession, worship, that makes it all livelier like an earthquake, starting off gently and intensifying with each second that ticks by.

Izaya shudders when he thrusts into him, but he doesn’t just take, he gives, jerking up to him to bury Shizuo deeper, tightening around him as if to keep him inside and Shizuo can see lightning strike in his eyes, as though it starts like small firecrackers in his temples to explode through his dilated pupils. His heels dig into Shizuo’s lower back, his nails scratch at his arms, and his teeth bite into the junction between his neck and shoulder. They move with synchronization, growing luscious, perfect and twisted.

Shizuo gives a sharp push and Izaya gasps, throwing his head back with a broken whine, breath stopping, and he comes, pulling Shizuo to drop all his weight on him, toe to toe and elbow to elbow, as he shakes, the tips of his fingers juddering.

Shizuo doesn’t stop after Izaya’s orgasm, he can’t, searching for his own, and it only registers later that Izaya came untouched; it’s never happened before.

“ _Izaya_ ,” he grunts like the name is the only thing fixing him to the world of the living. “ _Fuck_ ,” and he comes, a dying sound barely making its way out of his mouth. His hands wander all over Izaya’s body as though needing to reassure himself that he’s there, that he isn’t a dream or a trick of the light. “I love you so fucking much,” he says, pulling out and lying next to him, spooning Izaya close to his body as if to mold him behind his ribs. “I love you.”

Izaya doesn’t say anything in return, in fact, he doesn’t talk the rest of the night, instead, he falls asleep in Shizuo's arm, lulled by the movements of his even breathing.

 

In the morning, when Shizuo wakes up, Izaya isn't there but there's a note in the cold side of the bed reading: " _Loving me was an afterthought_ " in perfect script.

"That's not..." but he can't finish that line of thought. He can’t lie nor deny the truth of the words despite how much it hurts to accept it for what it is; a freezing electric shock.

It was Izaya’s love for Shizuo that created a shield against him, the physical -and emotional - hurt somehow rolling off him as he held on for the possibility of a better tomorrow together and learning to move on for the best tomorrow he could have apart.

Shizuo’s hand just aren’t big enough to hold the failing parts of his own body as he breaks apart without even being touched.

" _but I ~~did~~ do love you, Shizu-chan._"

**Author's Note:**

> Took a small detour from my ongoing story, ["The Anatomy of a Camellia,"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12816264/chapters/33590970)  
> to write this. It just wouldn't leave my head, demanding to be written.
> 
> What do you think? Let me know in the comments!  
> -3B


End file.
